Epcot Adventure 2017

Epcot Adventure 2017

I hope you all had a great time with family and friends over the spring holidays.

Easter this year was later than normal, so my spring break was the week leading up to the holiday, and I had the opportunity to go to Disney World for some of break! Needless to say, I was thrilled. I was disappointed that we would only be in the Parks for two days, but I knew we could get a lot done.

I highly recommend going to Epcot on Monday like we did. As it’s the start of the week, everyone else in Disney will want to go to Magic Kingdom to start their trip off right. When we went, the park was virtually empty.

We got to Epcot right before “Rope Drop,” so it looked like there were more people there than there actually was. There is a small marching band show thing under Spaceship Earth at 9 (or when ever they open the day you go), and when they’re done, they lead you into the park. It’s very cool.

Reminder: If you are not staying on Disney property, make sure to check and see if there were extra magic hours that day. We did not stay on property, but there wasn’t an earlier opening time that day, so everyone got in at the same time. That wasn’t the case when we went to Magic Kingdom, however, but that’s a different story.

I went with my best friend and her mom to Norway immediately after we got into the park so that we could ride the new Frozen ride. My friend’s dad and brother, and his friend, walked over to TestTrack because the line wasn’t supposed to be long. Unfortunately, they ended up waiting for like forty-five minutes (in one spot) because the ride was having technical difficulties. (Chances are this won’t happen to everyone.)

The girls waited about 10 minutes for Frozen Ever After, and the ride was actually really fun; I highly recommend it. When we walked out, I checked the wait time, and it was already up from ten minutes to fifty! Better get there as soon as possible than to wait.

When we got to TestTrack, we got into the single rider line, which is always your best bet. We ended up waiting forty-five minutes because the ride was still being difficult. The time flew by fast, though, because we got into a conversation with a lady in line behind us who was there with her daughter, and they nice and fit well with our personalities. I rode TestTrack twice that day, and the other times were a lot quicker than the first.

We then mad dour way over to The Sea and rode the Finding Nemo ride (which honestly isn’t worth it, but I was just along for the ride, so I couldn’t complain). We had three FastPasses that day, and our first one was at 10:50AM for Spaceship Earth. When you get to the FP line, you will think it’s WAY too long, but the majority of the line you see is actually the standby line circling around. All in all, we waited about eight minutes.

We just went ahead over to The Land for our next FastPass (Soarin’), which didn’t start until 12:15PM, but it was a long walk over in that direction. (We also stopped by the Lightening McQueen topiary because, well… #kerchoo.)

Now, I just have to take a moment to rant about Soarin’. I didn’t know until we were in line that they had completely changed it since 2015, which is the last time I was in Disney. It used to be Soarin’ Around America (I think), but now it’s Soarin’ Around the World.

Let me tell you, that ride took my breath away. I have no idea what I was expecting, but whatever my expectations were, they were nothing compared to what I saw. I can say that I gasped for every single scene change because the images were as phenomenal as they would be in real life. It was flawless. (And the “smell-a-vision was SO STRONG.)

After that, we went to the World Showcase for a quick snack in Norway. I don’t recommend the Lefse which is what I got. I’m not sure what it was, but there’s is something off about it. 1/10.

At 1:20PM we had our first Character encounter, which was the last FP of the day. We met Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie. Mickey was first, and he took our hands Andy kissed them like a gentleman, then wished me a happy birthday. (I was wearing my birthday pin even though my birthday had been a few days before.) Goofy was very silly, but gave the best hugs to us. Minnie was my favorite of the three. Even though she couldn’t speak to us, we had the best conversation with her. She was “talking” about how much she’s loved our floral ears, which we had made for the Flower and Garden Festival, and she gave these little dainty hugs, just like you would expect she would.

The next part of the day, and the rest of the day, my friend and I (I’ll just call her Blondie since she was Disney Bounding as Rapunzel) worked our way through the World Showcase. We walked through Canada and Britain, then we met Alice from Alice in Wonderland. (Her meet and greet times are up in Britain right in front of her garden. I highly recommend meeting her; she was the best character of the whole trip.)

In France, we bought ice cream and sat in the bakery to chill for about thirty minutes. We then met Aurora in France (because apparently that’s a French fairytale), then took pictures with the topiaries in France and Morocco.

In Japan we got this really yummy shaved ice, and it had some weird name that I can’t remember. Just ask around when you go, it’s worth it. We sat in America and ate that and some California Rolls. (Don’t overdo the soy sauce. I accidentally did on my last roll and I almost puked.)

We went and took some pictures of Italy but didn’t stay. Instead, we went to Germany. There we met Snow White, and while she had everything on the outside fitting a Snow White description, something about her attitude was off. The only reason we even wanted to meet her was because we thought it might be our friend workin as Snow that day.

At this point it was about 6:30PM, and we still had two hours until our dinner reservations at the Mexican Restaurant. We had enough time to walk around China which was good, because I had to find a present for a friend. Her favorite character was Mushu, the little dragon from Mulan, and LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING.

I WENT THROUGH EVERY SINGLE DISNEY RELATED STORE IN DISNEY SPRINGS, EVERY STORE I COULD FIND IN EPCOT, AND EVERY STORE I COULD FIND IN MAGIC KINGDOM, AND THERE WAS NOT ONE PIECE OF MERCHANDISE FOR MUSHU ANYWHERE.

I’m still mad and it’s been two weeks.

Anyway, we went back to the same area we met Mickey and got in line to meet Baymax from Big Hero 6. While we were in line, we went on the Disney Parks app and saw that the wait to meet Anna and Elsawas only 25 minutes when it was usually up to over an hour.

We bolted back to Norway.

Anna and Elsa were exactly as you would imagine they would be. We met Elsa first. She was calm and collected, exactly as a queen should be. She told us that Olaf loves the spring time, except he always sends his carrot nose flying when he sneezes, and Sven always eats it.

Anna was a whole different story. She was very socially awkward, exactly as I wanted her to be. And her poses for the pictures were SO CUTE.

We went to dinner at the restaurant inside the Mexico Pavilion pyramid. It was really good! I got a cheese quesadilla with the best chips I’ve ever eaten. The beans were also really good, but they threw me off because they were pitch black. It was strange.

We left the park an hour after they closed, and the park was virtually empty. There were still a few stragglers, but I’m glad it was that way, because we hadn’t really good spot for the fountain show.

That’s right. There is a fountain show.

I had no idea such a thing existed until loud music started playing over the sound system. The water started shooting up with the music, changing color as it did. I was really pretty.

So there you go, my Epcot adventure!! I didn’t like Epcot until this trip, to be honest, but I’m glad I got to experience it, because it is now my second favorite. (Magic Kingdom will always be my favorite.)

If you have any questions about the parks in general, please let me know!